The Difference Between Alimony and Child Support

By
Roscich & Martell Law Firm, LLC
|August 05, 2013

The cost of divorce can be daunting. For many divorcees, especially parents,
legal fees are the least of their worries—figuring out payments
such as alimony and child support can get to be quite a burden if not
calculated and enforced correctly. And yet the difference between the
two payments is something not all divorcees know going into it.
According to
Yahoo! Voices, “in the eyes of the almighty Internal Revenue Service, alimony
and child support are as different as night and day.” Child support
is paid and received in a realm outside of taxable income, and there are
no tax ramifications for either the recipient or the giver. Alimony, on
the other hand, “has tax implications for both the payer and the
recipient,” according to
Yahoo!. Alimony is a payment structured to help the non-breadwinner spouse, who
may have trouble regaining his or her financial footing after a particularly
difficult split. According to
Yahoo!, failing to “pay court ordered
child support
payments is breaking the law and committing a criminal act… the
same remedies do not apply to being late with alimony payments.”Many
states are currently considering alimony reform because many
, according to
Forbes, now view lifetime alimony a “relic from the days when very few
wives worked outside the home.” Many ex-husbands are responsible
for paying their ex-spouses even if she has a steady income, even if he
remarries. One man, as he wrote
for CNN News,
actually had to declare bankruptcy because the Massachusetts court that
sanctioned his alimony payments ordered him to pay nearly $900 a week,
for the rest of his life. As a result, the man began an organization called
MassAlimonyReform.org, which has helped to draw national attention to
the growing alimony problem. Alimony, according to DivorceNet.com, isn't
determined by a scale similar to that of child support. “If the
spouses can't agree on an amount and payment scheme, the judge makes
a decision,” according to DivorceNet.com. If you or someone you
know has questions about alimony or child support, the most important
first step is to contact a dedicated
Illinois family law attorney
today.

The information on this website is for general information purposes only.
Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual
case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt
or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.